Muhlenberg College. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVEEED BEFORE 



The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, 

BY Rev. T. L SEIP, D.D., 

President of tlie College, Allentown, Pa. 



:PTJBX.ISI3::EID B"^- lE^ZESQ^UiEST, 



V 

-L^-L V^ J 



H 



BERG 




j_/. 



hUh 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE MINISTERIUM OF PENNSYLVANIA 



AT ITS 



140TH SNNUSL MEETING. 



HELD IN ZION'S CHURCH, PHILSDELPHIS, JUNE 2, 1887. 



By Rev. T! Lf SEIP, D.D., 

Presidetit of Muhlenberg College, Allentoivn, Pa, 



WITH AN EDITORIAL FROM "THE LUTHERAN." 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 






't-^^' 



Allentown, Pa., June '2Uh, 1887. 

Pres. T. L. Seip, D.D., Muhlenberg College. 

Rev. and Dear Sir: — At the meeting of the Executive Committee of 
the Trustees of Muhlenberg CoUege, held on 'the 24th inst., we were 
appointed to request for publication a copy of your address on Muhlen- 
berg College, delivered at the late convention of the Ministerium of 
Pennsylvania. It is the concurrent judgment of the Committee that 
the circulation of the address through our congregations would promote 
the interest of the institution, and press its claims upon the attention of 
our people. Hoping that you will furnish us with a copy of the address 

at an early date, we are, 

Very respectfully, 

S. A. Kepass, -\ 

E. S. Shimer, V Committee. 

C. J. COOPEK, ) 



Allentowi^, Pa., July 2d, 1887. 

Dear Brethren : — In answer to your note of the 28th ult., permit me 
to say, that my address was not prepared for publication ; but, as you 
seem to think that its circulation would serve the cause of the Church 
and the College, which are so dear to us all, I will cheerfully furnish it. 
Praying that the Divine blessing may attend this effort to promote the 
interests of Christian education, I am, with sincere regard. 

Yours in Christ, 



T. L. Seip. 



Eev. Dr. S. a. Repass, •\ 

Hon". E. S. Shimer, > Committee. 

Eev. C. J. Cooper, J 



MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 



{Editorial from the ^' Lutheran,''^ June 23, 1887.) 



We are pleased that we have secured, and have been able to 
spread before the eyes of our people, and the friends of Christian 
education, the valuable reflections contained in the discourse of 
President Seip, prepared by the authority of the Synod of Pennsyl- 
vania, and delivered in the presence of its members and a large 
congregation, in Zion's Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. 

It will not be possible in brief space to call attention at length to 
its remarkable and interesting statistics. Muhlenberg College in 
the twenty years of its existence has furnished fifty members for the 
Ministerium of Pennsylvania, who are successfully ministering to 
our churches in both languages, and has also many of her graduates 
laboring in theological and literary institutions and th^ Christian 
ministry in other places and parts of our land, as Augustana Semi- 
nary, Gustavus Adolphus College, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, 
Canada, etc., and of her two hundred and twenty-four sons more 
than one half are engaged in this glorious and necessary work. 
Besides this, the remaining half have shown themselves useful as 
physicians, legislators, lawyers, and in other honorable pursuits. 
Such an interesting record has she made during the first twenty 
years of her honorable existence, for which Ave should " thank God 
and take courage." This thought deserves special emphasis when 
we ask, in connection with it, what would be the condition of things 
in the Ministerium, and in other fields, if the College had not been 
founded ? 

5 



6 MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

There is a second thought, which was impressed with much force 
upon us at the meeting of the Synod, and since, in connection with 
the strenuous efforts made to secure money for the erection of the 
new seminary buildings at Mount Airy. What hope would there 
be of securing the College now, if arrangements had not been made 
with wise foresight, in advance of the present condition of things, 
to furnish the Church with a suitable place for the education of her 
sons ? We give expression to this thought here because the former 
trustees and friends of the College have often been severely cen- 
sured for acquiring the property and erecting the valuable build- 
ings they now possess for the Synod. They did no more than the 
directors and friends of the seminary are doing now ; and it is well 
that they did so. Necessity compelled them to it ; we rejoice now 
greatly that it was done, and we ought not to forget the circum- 
stances which occasioned the debt, and what prevented it from being 
at once liquidated. It was absolutely necessary at the time the 
College was started, when it was to enter into competition with old, 
long-established collegiate institutions around and near to it, such 
as Pennsylvania, Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Lehigh and 
Lafayette, to have such accommodations for the students which, 
even though not equally attractive, might not be repulsive to them. 
This was accomplished at a comparatively moderate cost, and if the 
original expectations and promises had been carried out and ful- 
filled, there would have been no debt. The brethren of the present 
generation ought to know, and those of the past remember, that 
during the jubilee year, 1867, $50,000 of the $100,000 expected to 
be raised were to be given to the College. One hundred thousand 
dollars, minus a small fraction, were raised, but the share of the 
College was directed to local objects. The debt therefore remained ; 
and the trustees and friends were left to work out the problem for 
themselves. This they endeavored to do, and let it be kept in mind 
that the College lived through all these "troublous times," still 
lives ; and will, by the blessing of God, continue to do so. Some- 
times brethren speak as if the money had been spent for nothing. 
It was not. The debt was incurred by necessity, to keep the sub- 
stantial possessions they had acquired. 



MUHLENBEEG COLLEGE. 7 

In this period, hundreds of gentlemen of Allentown aDd the 
neighborhood were induced, by the persistent labors " from house to 
house" of the trustees and friends of the College, to relinquish 
their individual shares of stock for the benefit of the institution, 
"without any equivalent ; and thus a start of many thousands was 
successfully made. By other labors, loans, temporary and perma- 
nent, they secured for the Church, the Synod of Pennsylvania, 
sufiacient buildings for all their purposes, including two excellent 
residences for the president and one of the professors, now in most 
excellent condition, through the eflScient labors of the present head 
of the institution, the financial agent and other friends; some five 
acres of ground in the central part of the beautiful city of Allen- 
town, continually increasing in value; an endowment of $120,000, 
equal to that of Pennsylvania College after almost three times as 
long an existence ; educational furniture, apparatus, library, etc. 
Thus it is seen the debt has not been for naught ; nor have any of 
the means been squandered in excessive salaries or unnecessary con- 
veniences, but all for what is solid and permanent. Let all this 
remarkable condition of things be remembered as an off*set to the 
unreasonable complaints, and thanks offered to God on this behalf. 

One last thought. A grand future is before us, but we must not 
relax our exertions, but continue to do our duty to the College, the 
nursery of the Church and the Seminary. The Synod has authorized 
and given its sanction to a plan by which this worthy institution 
can and ought to be freed from its still remaining burdens. It 
needs additional support, just like the oldest colleges and universities 
of our land. In the month of October ensuing, an opportunity will 
be given to our churches and people to contribute for the complete 
endow^ment of the German Professorship in the College. This ought 
to be done at the very least. We ought not to forget that Christian 
schools and colleges. Christian theological seminaries in connection 
with or as aids to the Christian Church, are the only hope of our 
land and the world. Let the example of New England stimulate 
the children of the mother Church of the Reformation. Millions 
have been and are now being given for institutions of this character, 
and so general is the habit of giving in that part of our country. 



O MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

that it has been said that an individual cannot die with an easy 
conscience unless he has left some of his substance to the literary 
and religious Christian schools by which he and his fellow-citizens 
have been educated. Those gifts will not be lost ; those given to 
Harvard two hundred and fifty years since still continue to diffuse 
blessings to society. Let us give, rich and poor, each according to 
his ability, whilst we live as well as when we die, to the cause of 
Christ and his holy religion. It Avill be amply repaid in time and 
eternity. 



ADDRESS. 

The subject which was assigned us for this occasion, and on which 
we propose to address you briefly, is 

MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

It is fitting that our College, which was named in honor of the 
patriarch Muhlenberg, should receive special consideration at this 
meeting of the Ministerium, at which centennial services, in com- 
memoration of that distinguished servant of God and founder of 
our Church in this country, are to be held. 

It is fitting and in harmony with this celebration, that we should 
speak of Muhlenberg College in this congregation, and in this city, 
in which Muhlenberg labored so faithfully and efficiently, and with 
whose history his name is so honorably and indissolubly connected. 
It is also fitting because of the vital relation of the College, as the 
training-school of the Synod, to our Theological Seminary ; because 
of its growing importance to the work of furnishing an adequate 
supply of trained ministers for our own pulpits and for the mission 
field, and of an educated laity for our congregations ; in short, be- 
cause of its importance as the educational foundation on which our 
church work in every department will largely rest in the future. If 
this be so, let us remark, in passing, how necessary it is to the future 
prosperity of the Church entrusted to our care, that this foundation 



MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 9 

be made deep and broad, that it be strengthened in every possible 
way by all the means at our command for this purpose. 

In presenting this subject Ave propose to discuss two points, 1. The 
importance of the College to the w^ork of the Church, and 2. The 
duty of the Church to the College. 

We need not enter into a lengthy argument in this presence to 
show the importance and necessity of an educated ministry for the 
Church, of men thoroughly furnished for the work, of able ministers 
of the New Testament. A body of divines distinguished by the 
name and teaching of Luther, whose church, from the time of the 
" Preceptor of Germany " until now, has shone with the lustre of 
the brightest names renowned for sacred learning, surely appreciates 
the importance of an educated ministry. The history of the Re- 
formation, our own incomparable symbolical books, especially the 
great Apology of the Augsburg Confession, from the pen of that 
phenomenal scholar, Melanchthon, all show with what signal effect 
the weapon of sanctified learning may be wielded. The labors and 
productions of Lutheran scholars in every department of learning, 
sacred and profane, from the Reformation period until the present 
day, form an invincible proof of the importance which our church 
has ever attached to education and learning. 

The Lutheran Church has always been distinguished as the church 
of theologians and scholars, and if we remain true to her spirit and 
character, we will not only endeavor to maintain this distinction, 
but will show our appreciation of the need of an educated ministry 
by putting forth every possible effort to furnish it. When we con- 
sider the need of an educated ministry in the light of our past his- 
tory, and of the growing demands now pressing upon us, and of the 
possibilities of the future, the importance of the College to the in- 
terests of the Church must be very evident. For how are we to 
furnish an educated ministry without the institutions, which are 
necessary to educate it ? Where are our young men to be educated 
and their characters formed in harmony with the spirit and faith of 
our Church ; where are we to give them their preparatory training 
for admission to our Theological Seminary, if not in a college of our 
own, established and sustained by the Church, on our own territory ? 



10 MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

We need not dwell on the great demand for laborers at home and 
abroad, to prosecute the work of home and foreign missions. This 
subject will be presented by others at the proper time. But you 
will permit me to remark that the field open to faithful ministers of 
our own Church is almost unlimited, and ought to be more rapidly 
occupied and worked than it is possible for us to do with our pres- 
ent supply, even if the means for their support were already at hand. 
A constantly-increasing supply of properly equipped men will be 
needed to take the places of ministers who are rapidly passing away, 
or becoming superannuated, or otherwise disabled. The proportion 
of such will be greater annually as the list of ministers becomes 
larger with the growth of our Church in new fields. If we look 
over our own Ministerium, we see the grave-yard bloom on many a 
brow, and very soon the places that now know many of our number 
will know them no more. How is this increasing demand for labor- 
ers at home and abroad to be supplied ? How are the growing an- 
nual losses to be made up except by the agency of our training- 
schools for the ministry, by giving greater attention and support to 
the educational work of the Church, by securing the right kind of 
students for the College and Seminary ? 

St. Paul tells us that, '* It pleased God by the foolishness of 
preaching to save them that believe." 1 Cor. 1 : 21. The same 
Apostle says, " How shall they believe in him of whom they have 
not heard ? And how shall they hear without a preacher ? And 
how shall they preach except they be sent ?" Rom. 10 : 14, 15. And 
we may add. How shall they be sent except they be properly edu- 
cated and equipped for the work ? From every point of view the 
College lies at the foundation of our entire church work. But the 
importance of the College to the work of the Church appears not 
only in the preparatory training of young men for the ministry, but 
also in the very significant matter of educating laymen for useful- 
ness in bur congregations. This part of the work of the College is 
not always remembered and valued as it should be. 

Our congregations everywhere need the services of intelligent 
laymen, educated in accordance with the faith, the usages and the 
spirit of our own Church, in our own schools and colleges. The 



MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 11 

congregations need laymen of liberal training, who are thoroughly 
acquainted with the various interests and operations of the Church 
outside their own localities, and have an intelligent conception of 
church work and of the great mission which the Lord has given our 
Church to perform, especially in this broad land. Laymen with 
such training and qualifications are needed to influence their fellow- 
members, and to assist and sustain their pastors, in their efforts to 
promote the various interests and enterprises of the Church. Such 
men are needed as teachers and officers in our Sunday-schools, and 
as advocates of every good work in the public meetings of the con- 
gregations. They are needed to represent our Church as she de- 
serves to be represented in the community of laymen at large, in 
the daily intercourse, not only of those in the learned professions, 
but also in social and business circles. Educated laymen are needed 
also to counsel and co-operate with the active members of the Church, 
who have not had the benefit of a liberal training, but are important 
and useful in the work of the Church according as they faithfully 
employ the talents with which the Lord has entrusted them. The 
Church needs and cherishes zealous, godly men of whatever degree 
of learning or education they may be ; but, other things being equal, 
skilled laborers, laymen with a liberal training in harmony with the 
teachings of our most holy faith, will be more serviceable in Church 
work than if they were not thus specially prepared for it. It is of 
no slight advantage and importance to the Church and her member- 
ship also to have her representatives in the professions of medicine, 
law and teaching. How great a boon it would be to our people in 
times of sickness, to be able to call to their bedside Christian phy- 
sicians, of their own household of faith, to minister, not only to 
their sick bodies, but, it may be, to " minds diseased" ! What a 
blessed calling is that of the Christian physician, who, in imitation 
of his Divine Master, not only heals the diseased body, but minis- 
ters to the sick soul. Such physicians would be a blessing to every 
congregation. The same is true to a large extent of the other pro- 
fessions. God-fearing, Christian lawyers are greatly needed to de- 
fend the rights of the wronged, to secure justice for the oppressed, 
to protect the innocent from wrong-doers ; in short, to conserve the 



12 MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

rights of their fellow-men. We need not dwell at length on the im- 
portance of having faithful, Christian teachers. The good they can 
do for the Church and the world is incalculable. They have the 
power largely to mould the character of Church and State for the 
future, by the influence they may exert on the youth entrusted to 
their care. The youthful mind is plastic. It can be moulded and 
fashioned almost at will. How essential to the well-being of society 
that it should be formed aright. The conscientious, Christian 
teacher is careful of the influence which he exerts on those commit- 
ted to his charge, and, like the Divine Teacher, instructs his pupils 
in that wisdom which maketh wise unto salvation. Such teachers 
are often the most efiicient helps of our pastors in their work. They 
are among our most active and useful members as Sunday-school 
superintendents and ofiicers, and are in every way a blessing to the 
congregation. The importance, therefore, of having well-trained 
laymen as well as educated ministers as skilled laborers cannot be 
over-estimated, and should elicit our most earnest efl^orts to secure 
them. 

The importance of the College to the work of the Church is shown 
also by what it has already acComfpUshed in the education of young 
men for the ministry and for usefulness as laymen in our congrega- 
tions. Of the 224 graduates of the College, 92 have already entered 
the ministry, and about 30 have been preparing for it in our Theo- 
logical Seminary during the term that has just closed. Several, who 
were members of other communions, have pursued theological stud- 
ies elsewhere. Thus out of 224 alumni, 122, or over half, have de- 
voted themselves to the holy ministry of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. If you examine the list of this body, you will find 
that over 50 of the members of this Ministerium, as given in the 
minutes of 1886, were educated in Muhlenberg College, a very re- 
spectable percentage of the Synod. 

Although the College is not quite twenty years old, and most of 
her graduates are still young men, scarcely any having reached 
middle age, yet a goodly number have already distinguished them- 
selves as professors in theological and literary institutions ; as pas- 
tors of most important charges and congregations ; as superintend- 



MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 13 

ents and teachers in our public schools ; as editors and writers for 
the religious and secular press ; as laymen prominent in the profes- 
sion of their choice, some even having won honorable names and 
titles in public life. Others are useful lay members in our congre- 
gations, blessing themselves and their fellow men, by reason of the 
liberal Christian training which they received in the formative 
period of their lives in Muhlenberg College. 

Thus the importance of the College to the work of the Church 
appears when we consider what it has done, as the preparatory 
school for our Theological Seminary, in the education of young men 
for the ministry, and for usefulness in the Church also] as lay- 
men. 

Its importance is very evident, even to the natural vision, when 
we see how rapidly the losses iu our own Ministerium are made up, 
and the gains increased by the graduates of the College, to say no- 
thing of the excellent men whom it has furnished to the Western 
institutions, and other synods of the General Council. We think 
we remain within the bounds of modesty when we claim that the 
College has done a great work for the Church, during the short time 
of its existence, in comparison with the limited means, which have 
thus far been received directly from the Church. Much more, 
doubtless, would have been accomplished if the educational work of 
the Church had received the attention and support which it de- 
served. But we thank God for the good that the College has been 
permitted to do in the past, though under great discouragements, 
and we trust in Him for the future. 

2. The duty of the Church to the College will appear from the 
following considerations : 

Muhlenberg College is the college of this Ministerium, owned and 
controlled by it through its own chosen representatives. It occupies 
exactly the same confessional position with it. All the members of 
its faculty, without exception, are members in regular standing with 
this Ministerium, or of congregations in connection with it. They 
believe, and are under solemn obligations to teach, the truth of the 
Old and New Testaments as confessed in the symbols of our Church, 
The distinctive position occupied by the iustitution as the College of 



14 MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

this Synod excludes it very largely from the active sympathy and 
support of those who are not of our Church, and the fact that it is 
not a secular or State institution deprives it of public aid. Under 
these conditions and circumstances the duty of the Church to sus- 
tain her own College is all the more imperative. This duty not only 
grows out of the relations, which the Synod sustains to the College, 
but arises also from the importance of the College to the work of 
the Synod and Church, as already show^n. As the work of the 
Church in every department depends on the supply of trained 
laborers, the College is the founda.tion of it all, and hence the duty 
of the Church to the College is of prime importance. This will 
appear when you consider the fact that nearly one-half of the stu- 
dents in our Theological Seminary, during the past year, were 
graduates of Muhlenberg College. Of the present class of young 
men, just graduated by the Seminary, fifteen out of the nineteen are 
graduates of Muhlenberg College. 

The duty and wisdom of the Church in providing and liberally 
sustaining a college in which her own lay membership may be fur- 
nished a higher Christian education in accord with her own faith 
and usages will hardly be questioned. We will not take the time 
to enlarge upon this point, and show the losses we have suffered in 
the past from want of proper attention to this matter. Let us be 
wiser in the future, and by all proper means endeavor to avoid a 
repetition of such losses. This can only be done by hearty sympathy 
and active co-operation on the part of all that are interested in the 
work of the Church. The trustees and authorities of the College, 
placed in trust and charge of its interests by your own choice, can 
accomplish little without your constant and active sympathy and 
support. They look to the pastors and congregations for students 
and aid, for kind words of encouragement and generous deeds of 
liberality. A word fitly spoken in the catechetical class, or in pas- 
toral visitation, will often leave an impression that will result in 
pious youth devoting themselves to the holy ministry, or in faithful 
Christians setting apart a portion of their worldly goods to the use 
of our educational institutions, the College and the Seminary. This 
Ministerium, with over 200 ministers and more than 400 congrega- 



MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 15 

tions, ought to have her institutioDS so well equipped in every 
respect and so full of students that they would be second to none in 
the land. To reach this goal in the near future should be the 
laudable object of our earnest endeavor. 

Surely so great a Synod should have more than eleven beneficiary 
students in its own College. You will, perhaps, be surprised to 
learn that the present graduating class in Muhlenberg College docg 
not contain one student supported by this body, although half its 
members will study for the ministry. The largest class in the Col- 
lege, the Freshman class, has but one beneficiary supported by our 
Synod, the remaining ten beneficiaries being divided between 
the Junior and Sophomore classes. Surely this is not as it should 
be, or might be, if a little more thought and attention were devoted 
to this subject by those who are in a position to do so. There are 
certainly more than eleven young men Avithin the bounds of this 
Ministerium who are unable to educate themselves, but who would 
be eminently worthy to receive a training for the ministry at the 
hands of the Church. 

Many of our largest and most influential congregations and pas- 
toral charges have not one representative in the College, either as a 
student for the ministry, or as a lay member. Of the 124 students 
in the College during the present scholastic year, only a few are 
from the largest cities and towns within our bounds, with their 
thousands of Lutheran population. We do not mention this with 
the intention of reflecting on any one, for we have no such purpose 
or spirit, but merely to show the extent of our material, and what 
might and ought to be done to increase the usefulness and success of 
the College in the work of the Church. It also suggests the ques- 
tion, which we will not now discuss, as to the future effect upon our 
church, if this vast material remains uneducated, or is trained in 
other institutions that are alien to our faith and usages. 

The cost of education in Muhlenberg College is certainly very 
low in comparison with what our people pay in other institutions 
outside our Church. As to the standard maintained in our course 
of instruction, we need but refer to the fact that our students have 
been received without examination, ad eundem, into the Sophomore, 



16 MUHLENBERG COLLEGE. 

Junior and Senior classes of older and larger institutions of 
acknowledged standing throughout the country, and have been 
graduated from them with honor. We could name the students 
and the colleges, if it were necessary to do so. 

Our graduates, we are informed, maintain excellent grade, in some 
instances, the first rank, side by side with the graduates of conspicu- 
ous and venerable institutions of learning. There seems to be just 
cause, therefore, why our Lutheran people should not always depre- 
ciate whatever belongs to their own Church, as they are so apt to 
do, but should discharge the duty which they owe to their own 
College, and to the faith in which they and their children have been 
baptized. So great a body as the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, 
with its round 100,000 members, should certainly be able and will- 
ing to furnish its College and Seminary with the most perfect equip, 
ments of every kind, and its activities and energies should be organ- 
ized and directed to this end as the first and most important object 
claiming its attention. 

What we need to accomplish this is an unselfish spirit and interest 
in the work of the Church, greater unity and harmony of co-opera- 
tion, with intelligent organization and well directed efibrt. If we 
love the Lord Jesus and His Church as we ought ; if we appreciate 
the great need of more laborers to gather in the ripening harvest in 
His vineyard ; if we realize our duty as we should, we will labor 
and pray earnestly, unitedly and persistently, until by the blessing 
of God our College and Seminary attain a usefulness and magnitude 
commensurate with the important work and interests of this historic 
and venerable Ministerium. May the Divine blessing rest upon all 
our efforts to promote the cause of Christian education. May God 
bless the College and the Seminary. Amen. 



I_1DI\MI^1 



028 355 925 7 



